MAEINE AETHEOPOD8 287 



of the sea, and the comparison will certainly be tolerated by anyone 

 who has watched the creatures as they climb among the corallines 

 and sea firs in an aquarium. Among such growths they are quite 

 at home ; and although their movements do not often suggest the 

 extreme agility of the monkey tribe, yet the ease with which they 

 seize the branches of the submarine forest with their long ' arms ' 

 and pull their bodies from one tree-like structure to another is 



Fio. 214. THE LONG-ARMED CRAB (Corystes Cassivelaunus) 



decidedly monkey-like. Their comparison with the long-legged 

 spiders is also a happy one as far as their general form and 

 movements are concerned, but it must be remembered that they 

 have not the same reputation for cruel, predaceous habits, for they 

 are more truly the scavengers of the deep, subsisting mainly on the 

 decomposing bodies of their dead associates. The movements of 

 most spider crabs are so slow and deliberate that one can hardly 

 imagine them capable of anything of the nature of violent action ; 



